Nocardiopsis coralli sp. nov. a novel actinobacterium isolated from the coral Galaxea astreata

Strain HNM0947T, representing a novel actinobacterium, was isolated from the coral Galaxea astreata collected from the coast of Wenchang, Hainan, China. The strain was found to have morphological and chemotaxonomic characteristics consistent with the genus Nocardiopsis . The organism formed abundant fragmented substrate mycelia and aerial mycelia which differentiated into non-motile, rod-shaped spores. Whole-cell hydrolysates contained meso-diaminopimelic acid and no diagnostic sugars. The major menaquinones were MK-10(H8), MK-10(H6) and MK-10(H4). The major phospholipids were phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol and phosphatidylinositol mannosides. The major fatty acids were iso-C16:0, anteiso-C17:0, C18:0, C18:0 10-methyl (TBSA) and anteiso-C15:0. The G+C content was 71.3 mol%. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain HNM0947T belonged to the genus Nocardiopsis and shared highest sequence similarity to Nocardiopsis salina YIM 90010T (98.8%), Nocardiopsis xinjiangensis YIM 90004T(98.5%) and Nocardiopsis kunsanensis DSM 44524T (98.3%). The strain HNM0947T was distinguished from its closest type strain by low average nucleotide identity (90.8%) and dDDH values (60.4%) respectively. Based on genotypic, chemotaxonomic and phenotypic characteristics, it was concluded that strain HNM0947T represents a novel species of the genus Nocardiopsis whose name was proposed as Nocardiopsis coralli sp. nov. The type strain was HNM0947T (=CCTCC AA 2020015 T=KCTC 49525 T).